I invite you, dear brethren, on this Feast day to pay a visit with me in all reverence to the shrine of St Thomas's soul. The key of entry lies ready to hand; it is in his written works.

Perfect lucidity, unruffled serenity, transparent candour, austere simplicity, complete self-effacement—these are the qualities which emerge eloquent from the pages of St Thomas, and tell us that here is a man utterly devoted to truth. Ego voz, said the Precursor John the Baptist. May we not say this also of the Angelic Doctor—that he is a voice, a disembodied voice which, if it were possible, would tell us nothing of the speaker, and bear witness only to the truth? Is there a single word in all the volumes that he wrote which betrays anything of the pride of personal opinion, anything of the sense of triumph over opponents, anything of the glow of self-satisfaction in discovery and achievement? There is an impersonal quality in the writings of St Thomas—not a coldness, no, that would be to mistake him entirely—an impersonal quality which comes not of self-impoverishment, but of self-abandonment, of self bendenment to truth.